


The Capturing of Fort Merceus

by indigorose50



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Non-Binary Byleth, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Post-Time Skip, found famiy, silly fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:14:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22259287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigorose50/pseuds/indigorose50
Summary: When the Golden Deer are too tired and stressed to read the map of Fort Merceus properly, Claude figures out a very mature way of making things clearer for them.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 53





	The Capturing of Fort Merceus

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since I started my Golden Deer run, I've been waiting for a good excuse to write these great kids :3 Hope you like silly fun times!
> 
> (also, this takes place post-time skip but there's no spoilers if you haven't done the GD run yet)

Later, the Golden Deer would blame the late hour combined with the blanket of anxiety that had covered the grounds of Garreg Mach ever since it was announced that the next move was to attack an unbreachable fortress. Doing completely immature and ridiculous things can only follow such conditions. 

“So then,” Hilda said hesitantly, pointing to the diagram on the table, “we enter through here?”

Claude shook his head. “No, those are the doors to the kitchens.”

“I thought these were the kitchens?” Ignatz pointed at a spot a few inches from Hilda’s fingers.

“No, those are…” Claude squinted and tilted his head. “Um. I have no idea what doors those are.”

“They lead to the buttery,” Lysithea supplied with an air of frustration.

Marianne’s eyebrows shot up. “W-We’re not going in through there, are we? We might hurt innocent people just cooking.”

A low grumble sounded through the meeting room. Raphael held a hand to his stomach. “ _ Please _ stop saying things about food. I’m  _ starving _ .” 

“We have been at this for a long time.” Leonie stood and stretched, her spine cracking in clear agreement. “Maybe we should call it a day? Get some dinner?”

Raphael’s emphatic “YES!” was eclipsed by Lorenz. “We cannot leave this table until we are all clear on the plan. At the very least we should all know the difference between the front entrance and the stables!” 

Hilda slumped in her chair. “It’s hopeless. It’s so hard to picture this stupid fort.”

In a rare show of unguarded emotion, Claude brought a hand up to massage his temple, letting out a despondent groan. “Teach?” He all but pleaded to the figure at the far end of the table. “Do you have any suggestions?”

Professor Byleth stood and walked around until they were standing beside Claude. As they pored over the map, they placed one hand on Claude’s head, smoothing the hair back rhythmically. Claude’s posture relaxed at the ministrations. In fact, the rest of them felt more at ease as well, seeing their leaders working together. 

“We need a new map,” Byleth said finally. 

Lorenz looked taken aback. “Do you think this one inaccurate?”

“No.” Byleth looked up at them, effortlessly holding the attention of all in the room like in their classroom days of old. “I mean, a different kind of map. If seeing things this way is confusing you all, maybe there’s a different way of looking at the fort.”

Claude, whose eyes had slipped shut, straightened. “That’s it!” His trademark grin was back. “We need a three-dimensional Fort Merceus!”

“Like a wood carving?” Leonie asked, mildly puzzled.

Raphael groaned. “That’ll take forever to make!”

“Not wood,” Claude said. “Something we can walk around in. Interact with.”

“An interactive fort?” Ignatz eyed the map on the tabletop. “Do we have enough space for something like that? There’s a lot to cover.”

Claude rolled up the map. “We only need the parts relevant to the plan. I know a place with plenty of room.”

* * *

The place turned out to be Lady Rhea’s bedroom.

Marianne stopped in the doorway, a look of horror partially hidden behind the hand she covered her mouth with. “Here?! We can’t be here!”

“Rhea’s not using it,” Claude pointed out with a blasphemous shrug. “Alright. We’re going to need more pillows.”

Lysithea suddenly glared at him as she put the pieces together. “You want us to make a pillow fort!”

Claude winked. “Look at you, finally connecting with that inner child you smoother so much!” The glare intensified.

Under Claude’s direction, and underscored by Byleth holding up the map and pointing, the room was remodeled. Leonie and Raphael pushed the bedframe to the opposite corner. The mattress was repurposed as the raised platform in the center of the courtyard. Rhea’s pillows were used as the wall of the gatehouse. Lysithea and Ignatz left and reappeared with pillows and sheets from the unused dorm rooms. When those proved insufficient, Marianne and Lorenz, the latter muttering about dignity and listing everyone’s ages as if this was new information that would stop the absurdity, were sent to get more. 

Byleth shook their head at one point and told Ignatz he was standing in the stable, not the armory. “Ah, apologies.” He stepped over a blanket-covered pillow wall onto the mattress. “I keep getting things confused. If only there was a way to label things without, you know, labeling them.”

Raphael grinned. “We need things!” He declared. When no one looked as excited as him, he elaborated. “We need to decorate the rooms so we remember what everything is!”

“I get it!” Said Hilda, clapping her hands together. “We need  _ accessories _ . Like horse statues in the stable and armor in the armory!”

“And food in the kitchen!” Raphael agreed with matching glee. 

The pair turned to Claude, who chuckled. “Sure, go for it.” 

They left, brainstorming boisterously together, and passed Marianne and Lorenz who were just returning. Lorenz watched them leave and then faced Claude. “What are you letting them do?” He snapped, sounding remarkably like an outvoted parent.

Claude crossed the room to take the bundle of pillows and blankets from him. “Don’t get your nobility in a twist. Here, come help me set up the barracks.”

Ignatz had confiscated all the green blankets and placed them around the fort. “It’s the forest,” he explained to Byleth’s lifted eyebrow. “For perspective.” He smiled his thanks when Marianne handed him another one from her new armload. 

The next Eyebrow was for Leonie, who had blocked off a corner next to kitchen. “In my village, you need a separate place for the hide of the animals you hunt.” Byleth looked pointedly down at the map they held open but Leonie just said, “It wouldn’t be on there because it’s not relevant to the plan, but I’m sure they have a space for stuff like this.” 

“That does make the fort more realistic,” Lysithea agreed. “I’ll make a training arena!”

Marianne laid a few pillows against the front wall. “I’m sure there’s a garden in here, too.”

Lorenz, who was kneeling on the ground unrolling a bright pink blanket, said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Military bases don’t have room for flowers and the like. And if it’s not relevant to the plan, why make it here at all?”

No one paid him any mind but Claude did smack him over the head with a throw pillow. Byleth stiffed a giggle and everyone beamed at the sound. Even Lorenz didn’t look too put out with the treatment if it meant such a reaction.

Before long, Hilda and Raphael were back. “Oh, good! A garden!” She said when Marianne pointed out her creation. “I grabbed a few flower charms from my room for general decoration but they’ll work better there.”

While Hilda placed various tchotchkes in their intended rooms, Raphael sat in the kitchen and passed around dinner. They were all mindful of their crumbs in relation to the bedding but Rhea’s carpet was not treated to the same care. 

“You know,” Lorenz mused, “we have a drawbridge for our residence in Gloucester territory.”

“That’s because you have a moat,” Lysithea pointed out, taking a large bite of a cookie Claude had given her in exchange for her bread roll.

“Then we should make a moat!”

Ignatz stood and peered over at the forest he had created. “Blue blankets should do it. Maybe we could put a few pillows underneath to give it a different texture. Set it apart.”

Lorenz brightened. “An excellent idea!”

Claude got up from where he and Leonie had been stacking pillows to make a tower. “Sounds like we need to make another supply run. I’ll go this time.” He winked at Byleth. “Watch the kids for me, will yah?”

As the ‘kids’ yelled their disapproval at Claude, he left. Hilda crouched next to the garden. “Oh you did a great job, Marianne! I could just…” Without finishing the thought, Hilda flopped over onto the garden, nuzzling into the pillows. “I knew it! So soft. You couldn’t do this in a  _ real _ garden.”

Raphael laughed and took a few pillows from the kitchen to make a wall around her. “There— now you have a nice garden bedroom!” 

Hilda cheered and pulled a blanket from Lorenz’s moat-bound pile and made it the roof of her room. “Fort Hilda!”

“Hey!” Lorenz tried to swipe the blanket back but Hilda held fast. With a huff, Lorenz sat himself in the armory. “Stay over there then! None of you are allowed in Fort Gloucester.”

Marianne lifted the roof of Fort Hilda, a rare smile lighting her face. “May I come in? You’re napping on my garden after all.”

“Of course! Anyone can come in except that smelly Lorenz.”

“ _ Excuse _ me, I am nothing of the sort!”

Giggling, Hilda all but pulled Marianne into the fort. Raphael grabbed the last of the sheets from the bedframe and draped them over the kitchen. “C’mon, Ignatz! Our’s is gonna be the best fort. We have all the food!”

Leonie dropped the towel she had been about to top the tower with. “Room for one more?” Ignatz pushed over the wall marking the scullery and welcomed her inside.

“Lysithea~” Hilda called in a singsong tone. “Come on! I saved a flower bed just for you~”

Without hesitation, Lysithea crawled into Fort Hilda. In the former armory, Lorenz pouted and grumbled to himself. He sat up straighter when Byleth carefully picked their way through Fort Merceus to sit down beside him. “Fort Gloucester-Eisner,” they stated. Lorenz grinned viciously out from his mess of blue blankets. 

From the kitchens, Leonie threw a wadded up red pillow case that must have come from a former Black Eagles bedroom. “Fireball!” She yelled as it hit the top of Fort Hilda.

Raphael, holding a chicken leg in one hand, pumped his fist in the air. “Go Fort Kitchen!”

Hilda’s laughter echoed from her fort as Lysithea peeked out. “Have some of  _ that _ !” She tossed a throw pillow at Fort Kitchen but it bounced off the wall and hit Lorenz’s feet. 

“Watch it!” Lorenz snapped as he picked up the pillow. He aimed for Fort Hilda but it sailed harmlessly over the far wall and hit the four poster instead. 

“Good arm,” Byleth said flatly. Lorenz flushed as Ignatz burst out laughing into Raphael’s shoulder.

Soon pillows, pillow cases, and even a few socks were thick in the air. At one point, Marianne tossed Byleth a rolled up towel and told them to use the “Sword of the Creator” to bring peace. Marianne hadn’t been able to hold in a giggle but Byleth had accepted the towel solemnly. Sometime after, Ignatz took off his cloak to make Leonie a shield; a barrage of scarves Hilda had swiped from a Blue Lions bedroom hit the shield, defending Fort Kitchen from the onslaught. Lorenz cursed quiet un-noblily when Raphael scored a hit right into his eye.

A sharp, intrusive, and scandalized sounding “What is the  _ meaning _ of this?!” stopped the fighting cold.

In the doorway of what everyone was abruptly remembering was Rhea’s bedroom stood Seteth. He was staring around, taking in the stacked pillows, layered blankets, scraps of food, striped mattress, discarded socks, and guilty faces. Stepping into the room, he crossed his arms as if physically holding himself back from total outrage. “Clean this up at once!”

Hilda squirmed out of her fort and propped her arms on the outer wall beside the half-finished drawbridge. “I’m sorry,” she said sweetly, “but your authority is not recognized in Fort Merceus.”

Leonie gave whoop from where she was reclining in the buttery Fort Kitchen had taken over. “What  _ she _ said!”

There was a ten second pause that Seteth was surely counting. “I beg your pardon?” He finally ground out.

Lorenz stood from his fort and straightened his hair as he spoke. “We were preparing the final touches for our invasion and needed a better way to picture the battleground,” he explained grandly, as if he were not surrounded by bedding.

“You made Fort Merceus,” Seteth said in a dangerously low voice, “in the Archbishop’s  _ bedroom _ ?”

“Yup!” Raphael said. “And we made it better, too!”

Seteth’s fingers were now digging into the sleeves of his shirt. “And whose idea was this, exactly?”

“Here we are!” Claude announced, all but pushing past Seteth with an armful of pillows. “Fresh from the knights’ rooms!” He turned and noticed Seteth, and seemingly ignored the half horrified, half shaking-from-suppressed-laughter faces his friends were aiming at him. “Ah, good evening, Seteth! Did you want to add some strategic input? We could always use your guidance!”

His attempt to butter up Seteth lead to another ten seconds of silence that Seteth was probably speeding through at this point. “What I  _ want _ is for you all to clean this up! How could you disrespect the Archbishop like this?! This room has been kept in pristine condition for her return and you— you have  _ eaten _ in here!” Seteth waved an arm to gesture at the whole of Fort Merceus. “Among other atrocities!”

Claude plopped the pillows onto the drawbridge. “How dare you. This is a very serious meeting of the minds.”

There was a lot of whispering going on between Fort Hilda and Fort Kitchen that Byleth cleared their throat to distract Seteth from. “We promise to clean up when the meeting is over.”

“No,” Seteth cried, dropping his arms to his sides and forming shaking fists. “You will clean this up _ right now _ !”

Claude snorted. “Unless you’re hiding Rhea up your poofy sleeves, I don’t see the rush.”

Seteth tried to eek out a few words at once, one of which might have been ‘poofy’, but he settled on, “It’s the principal of the thing!”

“What were you even doing up here so late?”

“I could see the firelight in the window and came to check on things. You’re straying from the point, von Riegan!”

Claude snapped his fingers. “The curtains! Thanks for reminding me. They’ll make great ballista platforms.”

Seteth gasped like touching Rhea’s curtains was an act most forbidden. “Don’t you dare!”

With a shrug, Claude stepped to the side so he was no longer between Seteth and Fort Merceues. “Fine then. We’ll use something from her closet.”

“ _ You wicked— _ ”

“NOW!”

As one, the whole of Fort Kitchen, Lysithea, and Hilda threw a continuous volley of fireballs. Marianne kept them well supplied with the pillow cases Lorenz had been swiftly collecting during the conversation. 

Overwhelmed by the sudden attack, Seteth backed out of the room with his arms over his face. Once he had stepped out, Claude surged forward and slammed the door shut, clicking the lock home. There was muffled, unintelligible roar of frustration from the other side. Claude flashed a smile with his back against the door. “You are all brilliant and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” 

The handle rattled. “Open up this instant!”

“No authority!” Hilda cried. Raphael and Leonie added their cheers.

“You leave me no choice! I will return shortly with the knights!” Dramatic stomping marked his exit.

Lysithea stood and said in a grandiose tone, “Golden Deer, the fort is ours.” This time, the whole of Fort Kitchen and Fort Hilda cheered and pumped their fists into the air.

Lorenz sank into the courtyard. “We are in  _ so _ much trouble.”

Claude stepped over the front wall and sat beside Byleth in what was rapidly becoming Fort Eisner. “Eh, we’ll be fine unless he comes back with Cyril. I think that kid seriously wants to kill me.”

“We need a flag,” Leonie decided. She turned to Ignatz. “If Rhea’s desk has ink, do you think you can make one?”

“Sure! The flag of Fort Merceues or our own flag?”

As the others made plans to keep the Seteth away and worked to improve their forts, Byleth and Claude remained in Fort Eisner. Claude pulled his knees to his chest and rested his chin on them. Byleth absently fiddled with the towel Sword of the Creator. “We didn’t get any planning done,” Byleth said after a while.

“True.”

“That wasn’t your plan, was it?”

Claude let out an amused huff and turned to look at Byleth with soft eyes. “You saw them in the meeting room. They needed to relax. We have plenty of time to iron out the details.” He watched Raphael knock over a tower and steal its pillows. “Actually, you keeping me calm in there gave me the idea.”

Byleth looked out at their laughing students. The flag was coming along well and there was talk of hanging it outside the door.

Wordlessly, Byleth handed Claude the Sword of the Creator, which Claude took with a chuckle. The chuckle cut off when Byleth once again began running their fingers through Claude’s hair. Claude’s eyes fell shut, still grinning. He would have been dismayed to know he missed Byleth’s return smile. 


End file.
